The exploration, development and completion of an oil or gas field requires numerous pieces of oilfield equipment, such as but not limited to casing, drill pipe, packers, oilfield valves and other equipment. The cost of this equipment is relatively high. Accordingly, it is desirable to optimally use and/or reuse many pieces of oilfield equipment for subsequent drilling and development operations. However, equipment undergoes considerable stress during drilling and completion operations. For example, pieces of oilfield equipment, such as drill pipe, may suffer from material fatigue which may ultimately result in failure of the drill pipe. The failure of downhole equipment will require a suspension of drilling operations to recover the remainder of the drill string and other related equipment. It will be appreciated that the recovery of a drill string can be an expensive and time-consuming operation, which should be avoided, if possible. Accordingly, it is desirable to maintain complete service records relating to various pieces of oilfield equipment, such as, but not limited to, drill pipe, for the purposes of determining fatigue and other factors relating to the use of the equipment. By maintaining an accurate, detailed record of the use, inspections, repair and maintenance for each piece of oilfield equipment, the fatigue and other factors relating to the use of the piece of oilfield equipment can be monitored. Thus, the piece of oilfield equipment can be taken out of use before such piece of oilfield equipment fails.
It is to such a method and apparatus for accurately maintaining service records for various pieces of oilfield equipment that the present invention is directed.